Being a Construction Worker in Sydney

By Han Wenhao

Aquestion was raised on Zhihu.com, the Chinese version of Quora: “Can the young generation endure the hard moments in life?” One answer,which received over 20,000 thumbs-up, came from a reply of a young man named Han Wenhao.Born in Shandong Province, Han Wenhao applied for an Australia Working Holiday Visa after graduating college and received it unexpectedly. He flew to Sydney and experienced the blue collar life as a construction worker.

Here is how Han Wenhao recalled his days in Sydney.

Obtaining a Construction Worker Position

It was in early August of 2017 when I bought a plane ticket from Hefei to Sydney via Shanghai. I just wanted to see whether I could survive in a foreign country with my own abilities, diligence and English competency.

I booked a youth hostel online in advance, which cost less than 20 Australian dollars(approximately 100 yuan) per day because it was a low season in the winter. I had three roommates from Italy, Chile, and South Korea.

Four of us slept on two bunk beds in that tiny room that was no more than 15 square meters. The Italian guy had also just arrived at Sydney with a working holiday visa. We revised and printed English CVs together, and then made copies in the library. We sent CVs to every company that might hire us, and jokingly called the door-to-door interviews“street sweeping.”

In the first month, we sent CVs every day and received one or two interview calls from employment agencies, but none of the companies hired us. While the money in my bank account dwindled, I began to feel worried and counted how many days I could last.

One day, while I idled around,my phone rang, and I heard a voice from the other side,“Hello, there is a vacancy in our construction company, and we are recruiting new workers…”

I easily made it through the interview the next day. This kind of job was not very demanding.It just required proficiency in English and a strong body.

The day after that was my first day on the construction site, a night shift actually. I arrived at Pitt Street at 5 pm and was led to a conference room where the foreman was about to introduce to us new comers the basic information and rules of the project. The meeting started at 6 pm as scheduled and I was introduced to three new colleagues, two from Germany and one from France. The foreman then gave us safety vests,helmets, shoes (the steel toe cap provided protection when heavy stuff hit the feet), and dust masks.

Nothing Is Easy

A Germen colleague and I were responsible for removing a suspended ceiling. Even though the Styrofoam ceiling tiles were not heavy, we needed to raise our heads most of the time. My back hurt after just several minutes.Moreover, the dust from the ceiling made it hard to breathe,even when I wore a mask.

We worked 11 hours from 6 pm to 5 am every day, including 15 minutes of paid smoke breaks(the foreman always let us rest 30 minutes) and a 30-minute unpaid meal break.

The job was a challenge to me, especially the first three and half hours from 6 to 9:30 pm—it always seemed to last forever.There was always loads of works waiting for me, but my arm muscles were often too sore to lift above my head and it seemed like a century before the break time arrived.

Thirty minutes of meal break was too short to enjoy. It passed so quickly that it felt like I just sat down, had a sip of water and a bite of bread, and went back to work.It fully demonstrated the theory of relativity.

It appeared that all my colleagues were physically stronger than me, especially those two Germans. They were so energetic that they could hum songs while working, while I felt completely exhausted.

After the first shift, I dragged my feet slowly back to the hostel.It was 8 in the early morning when I got back to my room. I hurried to eat some bread and drink a glass of milk, and then went to bed. I woke up at 3 pm and went to the market to buy food for supper and my midnight meal. It was almost 5 pm by the time I finished supper and prepared my midnight meal. So I had to leave again and start a new night of work at 6 pm.

It was extremely tiresome the first week. I kept telling myself,“Nothing is easy for adults.” I kept telling myself that this is what it meant to cut myself off from my family economically and shoulder my responsibilities as an adult.

Conflicts in Intercultural Communication

While coping with work pressure, I also had problems communicating with colleagues from different countries. Culture is a river and each of us is a fish swimming in it. We are not aware of where the river is, but we are bound to it. Even if I jumped into the Australian river, I maintained my way of thinking and life attitudes as a Chinese fish.Therefore, it was inevitable for me to encounter problems and even conflicts when living with“fish” from different countries in the ethnically diverse society of Australia.

My German colleague Jackson was stubborn and maintained absolute fairness at work, but the Italian foreman liked to allocate work in a casual way.For example, two workers were in a group. One was responsible of removing floor slabs, and the other was responsible of putting the slabs into dump trucks. The work of dumping slabs was not so tiresome, so Jackson demanded to trade jobs every 20 minutes.

In my view, the workload was pretty much the same. It was inconvenient to switch jobs every 20 minutes because they needed to climb up and down the scaffolds again and again.As the other workers didn't agree with Jackson's suggestion erther, they argued and finally agreed to follow the foreman's arrangement.

In fact, it was hard to define absolute fairness. For instance,Sherry, a blonde girl from New Zealand was another colleague of mine. She was only responsible of pushing the button on the elevator, but got the same pay as the male workers who had to toil all day long.

I found that Australian people had developed a unique way of resolving the conflicts in the cross-cultural context. First off,there was zero tolerance for any racial or religious discrimination.No matter who had conflicts,nobody could discriminate based on the other's nationality,ethnicity, or religion; otherwise,he or she would be fired. Second,the complaints channel was very effective and efficient. Any employee could write to the relative department and complain about any unfair treatment or discrimination. Once verified, the company would definitely rectify the problem and give a reasonable solution to the complainant.These principles guaranteed that workers with different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds could work together harmoniously.

I got my first payment at the end of the first week. They transferred 1500 Australian dollars to my bank account and I got 1200 after paying tax, which was equivalent to the monthly salary of a white collar in China.

When the first check came in, I was down to my last 100 Australian dollars. I had mixed feelings when getting my first payment, but I knew I had succeeded in surviving this new life in Australia.

(From Chengdu Economic Daily, October 6, 2018.Translation: Li Li)

在悉尼當建筑工人

文/韓文豪

知乎上有一個問題：“現(xiàn)在的年輕人吃不了苦嗎？”獲得兩萬多點贊的一個回答，來自一個山東小伙子。他叫韓文豪，大學畢業(yè)后，因為一個偶然的機會，他申請到了打工度假簽證，飛抵澳大利亞的悉尼，結結實實體驗了一把建筑工人的藍領生活。

下文便是韓文豪對那段生活的親筆回憶。

“掃”到建筑工

2017年8月初，我買了一張從合肥轉上海飛悉尼的機票，我想看看，靠著自己的智力、體力以及英語能力，能不能在這片完全陌生、舉目無親的異國他鄉(xiāng)生存下來。

我提前在網上預訂了青年旅社，冬季是旅游淡季，因此，青年旅社的日租只要不到20澳元（約合人民幣100元），我的房間里還住著來自意大利、智利和韓國的三個小哥。

不到15平方米的小房間里，我們四人睡著兩張上下鋪。那個意大利小哥也是剛到悉尼，也是打工度假簽證。我和他一起修改、打印英文簡歷，然后去圖書館復印，再去大街上“掃街”——挨家挨戶給所有可能錄取我們的店面投遞簡歷。

一個月里，我們每天“掃街”、投簡歷，也收到過一兩家職業(yè)介紹公司的面試電話，可沒有一家企業(yè)錄取我們。銀行卡里的錢越來越少，我開始緊張起來，隨時計算帶來的錢還能堅持幾天？

終于有一天，在我漫無目的地閑逛時，手機響了：“你好，我們建筑公司現(xiàn)在有職位空缺，正在招新的勞工……”

第二天的面試，很輕松就通過了。其實這種技術含量不算太高的職業(yè)并不要求什么專業(yè)素養(yǎng)，面試主要考核的是英語水平和體魄。

第三天就要去工地上夜班。當日下午5點，我早早到了工作地點皮特街，被領到會議室中，等待工頭來給我們介紹工地的基本情況和基本規(guī)則。6點，介紹會準時開始，和我一同入職的還有兩個德國小哥、一個法國小哥。工頭給我們發(fā)了反光背心、安全帽、安全鞋（鞋尖由鐵支撐，即使被重物砸到腳，也基本不會受傷）和防塵口罩。

沒有“容易”二字

我的工作是和德國小哥一起拆吊頂。雖然吊頂大多由泡沫板制成，并不重，但要時刻仰著頭，干幾分鐘就會覺得腰酸背痛。拆掉吊頂時會帶下來很多粉塵，即使隔著防塵口罩也覺得呼吸有些困難。

我們從下午6點干到第二天凌晨5點，11個小時。中間有兩段休息時間，一次是15分鐘的帶薪抽煙時間（工頭大多會給延長到半個小時），還有一次是30分鐘的不帶薪夜宵時間。

這份工作對我而言極富挑戰(zhàn)。尤其是從6點到9點半第一次休息前的3個半小時，簡直是我人生中最漫長的：仿佛一眼望不到頭的活兒，手臂酸痛到基本抬不起來，休息時間似乎還有整整一個世紀才能到來……

30分鐘的夜宵休息時間也轉瞬即逝：剛坐下，喝一口水，吃一口面包，30分鐘就沒了，又要艱難地站起來，繼續(xù)工作，真是另一種時間的“相對論”啊。

我覺得其他工友的體力和耐力都比我好，特別是兩個德國小哥，干起活來似乎有使不完的力氣。當我感覺自己都快累虛脫時，人家還能一邊哼著小曲一邊工作。

第一天下班時，我?guī)缀跏峭现_慢慢挪回旅社的。回到房間已是早上8點，趕緊吃口面包、喝杯牛奶，便倒頭睡覺。一覺醒來，已經是下午3點，又要趕緊去菜市場買食材回來做飯，還要留好晚上要吃的宵夜便當。吃完晚飯，裝好便當，差不多就到5點了，馬上就得出發(fā)。6點又要開始新一夜的工作。

第一周是最難熬的，我不斷告誡自己：“成年人的世界里沒有‘容易’二字。”自尊心和羞恥心也告訴我，我必須跟家里“經濟斷奶”，必須自己負擔起作為一個成年人的責任。

跨文化交際沖突

適應壓力的同時，我也面臨與同事的跨文化交際問題。文化就像一條條河流，我們每個個體都是河里游動著的魚，我們感受不到河流的存在，但是我們依附于河流而存在。即使跳進了澳洲社會的河流，我依然是一條“中國魚”，依然保留著中式的思維方式與處世態(tài)度。在澳洲這樣的移民國家里，和來自世界各國不同種類的“魚”共處，出現(xiàn)問題、產生沖突幾乎是不可避免的。

比如我的德國工友杰克遜，做事喜歡認死理，一定要講求絕對的公平；我們的工頭是意大利裔，安排工作充滿意大利式的灑脫。舉個例子：兩人一組工作，一個人負責拆樓板，另一個人負責把拆下的樓板收起來放進垃圾車。相對而言，收建筑垃圾的活兒稍微輕松些，于是杰克遜就要求每隔20分鐘互換工作。

在我看來，工作難度差不多，而且最重要的是，互換的話，工人每隔20分鐘就要從腳手架爬上爬下，很麻煩。所以其余的人都不同意，爭吵一番后，還是按照工頭的安排來。

其實，所謂絕對的公平很難界定。比如來自新西蘭的金發(fā)美女工友雪莉，她是電梯工，只負責按電梯，聽起來很簡單輕松吧？薪酬待遇跟我們這些出力氣的男工人一模一樣。

我發(fā)現(xiàn)，澳洲社會早已進化出自己獨特的一套方式來化解這種跨文化交際產生的沖突。首先就是對種族或宗教歧視零容忍。隨便誰和誰產生沖突都可以，但是絕不能在沖突中攻擊對方的國籍、族裔或宗教，一旦有此行為，基本上直接丟工作。其次便是十分完備的投訴機制。任何一個小工都可以直接向公司郵箱寫信，投訴自己遇到的任何不公平對待或歧視。一旦投訴被查實，公司一定會更正，并且給投訴人合理的答復。這些原則，基本保證了各個族裔、不同文化背景的人可以一起共事。

熬過第一周后，工資緊跟著發(fā)下來，直接打進我的銀行卡里：整整1500澳元，稅后1200多澳元（合人民幣6000多元），抵得上國內白領一個月的工資了。

這個時候，我?guī)淼腻X只剩下不到100澳元了。拿到第一筆工資的我百感交集：我知道，自己硬生生闖入澳洲社會的初次嘗試成功了。（摘自《成都商報》2018年10月6日）